One At A Time
by sunsetofdoom
Summary: They say we don't fit together; they say we weren't meant to be.   Well. Here's fifty reasons that we love each other, and to hell with what they say.


#1-Comfort

"Why doesn't he _love_ me?" Isabella whispers into his chest, and he can only stare down at the beautiful girl in his arms and wish that, just once, he could hold her without any thoughts of his brother in her mind.

#2-Kiss

She has to love it when he kisses her in the middle of a sentence. It's endearing, and she knows that when he does it he just means that this is something he knows already- because he's loved her _that long_.

Of course, that doesn't mean she can't get irritated once in a while- especially when she's been raving about _something _that annoyed her. And now, with the butterflies awakened in her stomach and his soft brown eyes inches from her face, she can't quite remember what she was saying, or even why she was angry.

"Damn it, Ferb, I was in the middle of being mad about something! Could you just let me rant for two seconds without reducing me to a giggling teenage girl with your crazy kissing skills?"

#3-Soft

For a young man with such rough, callused hands, Ferb had the gentlest touch when he pushed the tangled, tear-soaked hair away from her face.

#4-Pain

She looked at the expression of agony on his face as he tried to cope, and she realized: this was a young man (practically a boy) that could go through Imperial torture without uttering a word of complaint- but the second she showed the slightest sign of being hurt while under his care, the pain was clear in his every feature.

#5-Potatoes

He just raised an eyebrow when he happened upon her in her yard, covered in dirt and irritated at her own inability to get the frustrating tubers to plant correctly.

#6-Rain

"You know," he pronounced, as if sounding out every word in his mind before he spoke, "when I was small, and still afraid of thunderstorms, my mother told me that this kind of rain was God's way of washing evil from the world- so that I wouldn't be frightened."

And she stared at him, as she got a wonderful idea-

She ran out the door- into the _pouring rain_- to cleanse herself, laughing.

And he followed.

#7-Chocolate

She's as surprised as anyone when, on the day she's been complaining about her awful cramps and mood swings, as soon as she steps up to her house she finds a basket full of supplies; Ibuprofen, _Love Actually,_ a single red carnation, and, perhaps most importantly, her favourite dark chocolate- not to mention tire tracks that are easily tracked to the house down the street.

#8-Happiness

He takes another swig of the Mountain Dew; this has to be the best remedy for lack of sleep _ever_. But however benefits it may have had, the combination of sugar and caffeine makes him babble like an idiot and say things that wouldn't be worth the energy it took to say them- when he wasn't completely overloaded by what felt like pure electricity.

Although it may also give him the guts to say things that he never would have, had he not said them purely by accident.

Isabella is climbing into his car for her customary ride to work- and as she opens the door and sits down, the dusk sunlight catches her hair, and she's looking off into the distance with those big blue eyes of hers and...

"Isa, would you like to go out with me sometime?" He hadn't planned that, not at all, and his face feels like it's on fire, but she had looked so perfectly _her _that his brain had short-circuited for a moment. He knows she'll refuse. He almost hopes she'll refuse, just so his brain can't tally another point in the "Why I Should Talk More" column, which has been slowly filling up since he was ten.

But astonishingly, she lights up. "Yeah! Of course! When do you get off work tomorrow?"

And they make plans, real plans, to meet at the park on Friday at six or so, and he's dropped her off at the Gap where she works and she waves back at him as she leaves with a brilliant smile. Maybe this blurting out thing wasn't really _that _bad...

#9-Telephone

They are only across the street- they don't strictly _need _to talk on the telephone. She could always just walk over to their house.

However, she liked the feeling that she could get the infamously lockjawed stoic to both grin like an idiot and be ready to talk constantly for over ten minutes, with only the touch of a button.

#10-Ears

When Ferb turns eighteen, the first thing he does (Besides finding his girlfriend and kissing her senseless, but that's kind of a given) is get his left ear pierced; the embellishment he chooses to put in it is a garnet stone, and all he will admit is that it is for "balance".

When she later asks their local New-Age woo-woo expert, Django, he says that garnet is a stone of love and compassion. Which she had earlier complained that her boyfriend, while amazing, could be a little lacking in. (Not strictly correct; he was very loving. He just had a hard time showing it.)

The next time Isabella sees him, sitting on the couch, she comes up and kisses the small stone in his ear.

#11-Name

"How'd you even get a weird name like _Ferbian,_ anyway?"

He laughs, because she's the first one who's ever outright asked him that- _she would be, she's special_, his mind whispers- and he explains about his mother and her closeness to a mechanic that, for some odd reason, everyone called "Ferb"- the full name had been their running joke, as his _real _name was Ferguson. And about how he had been the only one to stick by her during her accidental pregnancy by one Lawrence Fletcher. The mechanic had been diagnosed with a terminal illness just as she had reached her eighth month.

"So, our engineer extraordinaire was named after a mechanic?"

He nodded.

"The universe just loves coming full circle."

#12-Sensual

Her breath stuttered, faltered as he brushed his lips across her neck; the look he sent her through the mirror, of love and want and everything in between, made her head spin as she stood from the makeup table. She seized him by the collar, pulling herself onto her toes to whisper in his ear.

_"I'll do my lipstick again later..."_

And his eyes lighted with passion as he kissed her with care and urgency twisted into one.

#13-Death

The young boy hovers, barely, at the edge, almost-but-not-quite feeling his heartbeat slip away from him, and he just feels so tired...

_No, no!_ His mind won't be quiet, though, won't let him sleep, _why not_, he asks the part of his brain urging him not to fall, but all it will say is _no, you can't give up, don't let go..._

He starts to fade. _Why fight. There's no reason. Nothing to go back for when I'm already gone_. His heart is slowing again, weaker and weaker with each slowing beat. The voice, stubborn to the end, comes up with one last, desperate argument.

_No! You can't stop fighting! Don't leave! You haven't even told Isabella you love her yet..._

And that's when, with a Herculean effort, he pulls himself up from the depths of unconsciousness to find lights glaring from outside his eyelids.

#14-Sex

"For the last time, Isabella! I am not trying to protect you because you are a woman!"

"Why, then? You don't hover over Baljeet, or Phineas, or _anyone_ else like you do me! The only variable is-"

"The only _variable_," he sighs, hiding his eyes with his right hand, "is that _I love you_."

#15-Touch

It was the oddest thing- whenever she felt her friend grab her around the waist to 'save' her from an oncoming dodgeball, or when he wrapped his hand around hers to help open the van's frozen door, she could feel her heart racing, her ears got hot, and she was suddenly very aware of the _exact _feeling of his fingers or his hand or arm or whatever.

That hadn't happened in over a year, not since she got over her childhood crush on Phineas. She absolutely refused to consider what this implied about her feelings for his brother.

#16-Weakness

The first time he'd ever seen Vanessa, it was at the blueprints place; she turned around, her long, dark hair swinging, her legs elongated by her high heels, and when she greeted him with a low, sultry voice... _Well_. He was a hormone-addled preteen, and she was his first crush.

Over the years, of course, he knew her better; they spent time together, and she was no longer that pretty girl that had made him weak in the knees with just one word. She was a friend, a confidante, a stabilizing influence when he needed someone to lean on and always ready with a smack upside the head when he needed a wake-up call.

He, of course, never forgot how she looked that first day.

So when Isabella shows up at his door, with a cheekily short black dress, black high-heeled boots, and her long, dark hair swinging behind her...

It's really no wonder that the first thing that pops into his mind is the same sentence he had uttered the day he met his first crush.

_I... Was weak._

#17-Tears

Isabella looks up from the hospital bed, groggy and sore but alive, feeling the oxygen mask attached to her face, ready to ask every question running around in her mind- but all the _why_s and _how_s disappear the second she looks to her right and sees Ferb by her side with tears of relief coursing down his too-pale cheeks.

#18-Speed

She screams, but she can hear him laughing over the noise, holding her arms outstretched with his for balance, his strong fingers interlacing with hers, and she knows that as much fuss as she puts up about riding double on the experimental hoverboard, he would never let her fall.

#19-Wind

Isabella stands on the edge of the cliff, her hair thrashing about in the wind; not noticing how cold she was getting as the cool air whipped past her exposed skin. And she had completely lost herself in her grim thoughts- until her green-haired savior snuck behind her, grabbing the arms that were wrapped around her torso to place a jacket on top of her.

And then, as a bonus source of warmth, he wrapped her slight form in his well-built one, resting his chin on her shoulder.

#20-Freedom

The bell rings; finally, finally, after weeks of waiting and hours of watching the clock tick, tick, tick, agonizingly slow, the bell has rung and they can leave this building of pressure and torture and run free for the next 104 days.

The Flynn-Fletcher brothers can't wait; there is so much that needs to be done within the next three months that, the younger insists, there is no time to lose!

There is, actually. Because Ferb will not, will _not _let the first feeling of deliciously, gloriously free summer air against his skin go unaccompanied by the feeling of Isabella in his arms.

#21-Life

"So, life, love, the universe? Just science, nothing more?"

His response is a nod, his stern glance somewhat ruined by the fact that his hair was blending in perfectly with the grass he was laying on.

"So, something like this..." She takes his hand. It's warm, tough, strong, feeling immensely comforting to her cold, soft one. "Is only a chemical reaction? That's all?"

Again, just a nod, but he isn't severe now- the difference is all in the eyes, Isabella has learned, and now the earthy depths are overflowing with fondness.

"Don't you think that undermines the beauty of it all?"

Ferb looks puzzled, reaching up from the ground to brush his fingers across a few strands of her hair that have blown across her neck; she shivers at his touch.

"How in the world could it make anything, most of all _you_, less beautiful?"

#22-Jealousy

She steals a glance across the room, as she holds his brother's hands and giggles mindlessly; feeling pure jealousy radiate from him in waves as he seethes at her pathetic attempt to 'compromise'; the second Phineas has turned, she mouths a desperate _'I'm so sorry'_.

He gets up with such force he knocks over the chair, unable to watch any longer.

#23-Hands

He took her hand, held it tight. She was his lifeline, his anchor to reality; if she, too, abandoned him, it would be like trying to walk a tightrope with the net pulled away.

#24-Taste

Vanessa grinned broadly, licking her cone in a way that had young teenage boys for miles sprung. As she separated from her own treat, she decided to quip, "I'm having ice cream, and you're having _sad_. How does sad taste? 'Cause ice cream is _delicious_." On the word "delicious" she gave another perverted grin, and licked again.

Her adopted brother looked at her with narrowed eyes, sensing a challenge; he whistled, three notes of nothing in particular.

His girlfriend, Isabella, skidded over in her roller skates from their friend's table. "You called?"

Ferb gave her a pleading look; 'Please let me show her up? Please?' was the message- and it got across. Oh, boy, did it get across, and the Jewish girl was as eager as anyone to take Vanessa down a peg or two.

Isa's lips twisted into a Cheshire cat smile of her own- and she sat down next to him on the bench, kissing him thoroughly.

A small crack appeared in the older girl's cone where she was gripping too hard.

Once they had broken apart, and Isabella had rolled herself back to the other table, Ferb turned to his sister, who was staring at him with a raised eyebrow. He smirked, unable to help himself.

"Mine is better."

#25-Devotion

He sits on the floor next to the couch where she's fallen asleep, debating whether he should let her rest- _finals are next week, she's been running herself ragged, she's not used to losing sleep_- or take her home- _it's only a few houses down, she'd feel safer in her own house, she wouldn't want some creep who barely talks watching her-_

Her arm falls, tapping him on the shoulder. He takes her hand, rubs his thumb over her knuckles, and sees her smile in her sleep.

He smiles, too.

_I'll take her over later._

#26-Forever

Half-laying, propped up on his elbow by her side, simply watching her sleep, the teenage Brit is thinking.

His conscience whispers to him, accusing him- _she belongs to your brother, you have no right-_ blaming him- _she didn't want this, she went along with it because you pushed her- _

But all attempts at inspiring guilt are wasted; he's not listening.

Ferb simply watches her sleep, longing for her to be really his, and just wishing that this sweet feeling of belonging and being wanted would last forever.

Even if he knew it couldn't.

#27-Blood

"Ferb, I personally have nothing against your nationality, I love it as much as I love you. But I swear to God if you ever use the phrase 'bloody' to describe anything but a mangled corpse, I will personally show you so many levels of _bloody _it will stop you swearing for the next thirty years."

#28-Sickness

They sat in a stalemate, both pairs of arms folded, glaring each other down over the mug of "medicinal tea" she was trying to force him to drink to rid him of his cold.

#29-Melody

He plays his guitar and stares, mesmerized, as she dances in her red flamenco dress, her long dark hair, specially curled for the occasion, rolls across and over her back and shoulders like breaking waves.

#30-Star

When she was younger, she had a single star in the sky that she would wish, and wish, and wish on that Phineas liked her back.

But when he finally told her- after all these years!- that he loved her only as a sister, she sat in the yard, staring at "their" star, trying not to cry.

And then, his brother came out. And he taught her how to find the constellations.

#31-Home

The second he steps off of the plane, he of course gets tackled by an exuberant Phineas- but even as he yells in happiness at finally seeing his little brother again, there is a part of him that is searching the crowds behind him, wondering if she cared enough to greet his return home.

#32-Confusion

"Congratulations!" Addyson nearly shouted when she saw Phineas for the first time in over ten years.

The redhead looked at her like she had lost her mind. "What are you congratulating _me _for?"

"Wait, this is Isabella's wedding, isn't it?" Her large grin dropped; she had assumed...

He grins, grasping the roots of the confusion. "Yeah..." And then he leans in close, like telling her a secret. "But I'm the _best man_."

#33-Fear

There is one Halloween, when they're all discussing their fears- Buford can't stand the thought of being abandoned, Baljeet is terrified of not being perfect, Phineas has a phobia of needles- but when Ferb is asked, when he closes his eyes, and says, in a ragged, haggard voice, "Not being able to protect someone I care about.", Isabella silently reaches over and takes his hand.

#34-Lightning/Thunder

They came together, meeting with the same explosion as when the sky and earth are connected by a shaft of lightning in a storm. It only lasted a moment, and when they came back to themselves it was wondered how wise their actions had been; but neither could forget the massive crackle of pure emotion as they met in the center of their opposite personalities.

#35-Bonds

He strains against the metal that pins him, frantic to find his lover and make sure she's safe- for as much as he may feign indifference, he finds he is unable to even comprehend the terror he feels at the prospect of her being hurt.

#36-Market

They glimpse each other in the Farmer's Market during summer break; both are home from college, and eager to see everyone they left behind- but hadn't quite gotten around to each other yet.

Well, now they have.

"Ferb!"

"Isabella!"

They run together, and he picks her up, spinning her in the air.

And all of a sudden, her life is the fairy tale she'd always dreamed it could be.

#37-Technology

He sees Isabella's icon pop up on the chat module- it's a headshot of her, with her childhood plastic tiara adorning her elegant black hair.

Ferb isn't sure if she'd be alright with him trying to talk to her; he did leave her behind, back across the Atlantic Ocean with the remnants of his old life. He himself is nervous that if he even gets a taste of how he used to live, he'll fall back into the same old rutts that he escaped from.

But something tells him that he's going to need a few things from his old life in his new one.

So he clicks the picture of the girl he hadn't realized he missed, and her face pops up on the screen; and as his pops onto hers, her mouth slowly curls into a satisfied smile.

#38-Gift

"I know you don't believe in God, but-" She's struggling to hold back tears, he knows, and he can't let himself feel the guilt yet- "But I do, and I just want- I just want some way for Him to protect you."

She hands him her so, so precious Star of David necklace, the one she'd gotten at her Bat Mitzvah, and she presses it into his palm and folds his fingers over it.

"Please, wear it- I need to know- I just can't handle you being so far away... I need to know if you're going to be all right."

He feels like his throat is closing, and all he can do is hold her close, and wish his trans-Atlantic flight could somehow, miraculously, be postponed, if only to stay by her side a little longer.

#39-Smile

Her smile is easy. It's bright, and warm, shining like the sun no matter what.

His smile is more difficult. It waxes and wanes, sometimes full and glowing, other times strained, forced, or often not there at all.

But strangely, whenever they're together, they're both smiling, and it seems like everything is giving off light until nothing else can be seen but each other.

#40-Innocence

Christina is Isabella's daughter, her saving grace, from her first abusive marriage to Jordan Mills; and after she had finally found refuge among her childhood friend, Ferb Fletcher, he is caring enough to the dark-haired little girl to make her mother desperately wish she'd found him first.

But the absolute clincher, that warms her heart and seems to tear it to pieces at the same time, is the first time Chris calls Ferb "daddy".

And he hugs the four-year-old tight, with tears threatening to fall from his eyes.

#41-Completion

"Ha!" Isabella can hear the shout from outside the classroom. She turns up the music on her iPod, drowning out her friend's celebrations.

"I did it! Yes!" She turns it up a little louder, turning away from the open window.

"Ha ha! Fucking A! This is _brilliant_!" The music doesn't go up any louder; she growls in frustration, moving to close the window.

But just as she reaches to undo the latch, her hand is grabbed by her celebrating friend.

"Isa, I finally finished it! I didn't even need Phin's help!" He has such an excited grin on his face that she can't help but smile; he's babbling in excitement and it's contagious or something because she's pulling out her headphones and her eyes are widening. He holds up the magnetically-hovering cross between a skateboard and a surfboard; and a manic light is appearing in his eyes as he speaks.

"Wanna ride?"

#42-Clouds

When the version-one jetpack jerked a little (this would be catalogued in the notes as "a little turbulence"), she was fine. She got a little nervous when it started sputtering (marked as "slight engine malfunctions" in the report).

But when it sent her up twenty feet higher that it was supposed to and drenched her in rain that wasn't supposed to be falling on her for another week, she made up her mind.

She was going to _kill_that stupid egg-headed engineer.

#43-Sky

He's in his tiny flat in England, wondering how he plans to get by in this new country all alone.

She's in her bedroom in Danville, searching her heart and soul for the reason she suddenly feels so empty at his absence.

But they're looking at the same sky. That's enough. For now.

#44-Heaven

He watches her sing with his brother, his red hair and bright smile flashing like quicksilver under the lights, while her long black hair and blue eyes gleam, gently, mysteriously. And he thinks, privately, that even if he can't have her, even if it hurts like a bad scar whenever she looks at Phineas like _that, _even if he knows, wishes, hopes with every fiber of his being that _he loves her more_. Even if all that is true, right now, watching her shine and sparkle and dance like she was always supposed to... Well.

Just for now, that's heaven enough.

#45-Hell

Vanessa is giving a really scary grin as she pulls up her hair; Ferb tenses, visibly. These are never pleasant.

"Welcome to Hell, kiddo. Training starts now."

Over five hours later, after she's finally left, Isabella comes out with Tylenol and a hot water bottle as her friend lays on the ground, exhausted. She winces at the sight; that was _brutal._

She kneels down next to him. "You know, you could just quit. You know your pressure-point stuff, you don't have to learn handfighting."

"Yeah, I do." Ferb says it in a breath, a sigh; she's surprised he even has the energy to open his mouth.

"Why?"

He smiles, closing his eyes as he allows himself to succumb to his exhaustion.

"To keep you safe."

#46-Sun

She looks up at him, his bright green hair framed by the sun above him as he reaches to help her up, and all of a sudden, that disappointment in Paris doesn't matter so much- she thinks that high noon is a much more romantic time of day than the stupid _sunset_, anyway.

#47-Moon

He can only stare as her dark blue eyes and rippling black hair shine with the moonlight, transfixed by everything about her he's never seen before.

#48-Waves

He cannonballs, doing his very best to get as much water on her as is humanly possible. However, when he resurfaces, he takes a breath and ends up with a faceful of a wave, dropping like a stone for a second and coming up spluttering.

The wet hair on the top of her head is starting to frizz, her nose is sunburned, and her eyes are red-rimmed from keeping them open underwater; but when she breaks into a little-kid-in-a-candy-store smile and a giggle aimed directly at him, he sincerely believes her the most beautiful woman in the world.

#49-Hair

As she combs through the thick, foresty stuff, she offhandedly remarks, "You have the weirdest hair." He waits for the question he knows is coming, prepares to explain about a genetic mutation that turned it green sometime during infancy- but all she adds is, "It's just crazy how fast it grows.", and his mouth nearly falls open.

#50-Supernova

She's beginning to regret asking Ferb, of all people, to explain the science of a star going supernova; he's been going on, and on, and on for a good ten minutes now.

"-Or else an aging white dwarf could potentially generate enough heat to ignite carbon fusion, although this would generally utilize the energy from a seperate stellar companion-"

_I'm done_, she thought, and she stood on her tiptoes and kissed him.

When she opens her eyes again, he's been struck dumb, staring at her with wide eyes, hoping, wondering-

Isabella just smiles. "I think I prefer it when you're _not _talking."

He smiles back, a cocky grin this time, as he pulls her waist close to his and kisses her again.

* * *

**YYYEEEEAAAAAAHHHHHHHH!11!**

**I did it! 50 prompts! HA!**

**And they said I was lazy :)**

**These were originally supposed to be one sentence each... Clearly, I missed the mark a little... However, I liked a lot of the things that came out of the exceeded limit so much that I decided to keep it. I think I may actually expand some of these into full-length stories (don't quote me on that), and if you feel inspired by them, you can feel free to soliquize over them in your own fics to your hearts' content; I only ask that you give me due credit. :)**

**I LOVE YOU ALL. REVIEWS PLZ.**


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